I love amazon! Without amazon, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to get this fantastic book so easy.

When I was researching some recipes for ink made from natural, non-toxic ingredients, I stumbled upon Nick Neddo and his book “The organic artist“. I received it today – and it is awesome!

Neddo really goes into details on how to use nature to create your own art supplies. There is much more to discover than the obvious ideas like berry ink or clay.

Here is an overview of the content:

Charcoal

Pens

Inks

Inkwells and paint dishes

Paintbrushes

Pigmentss and Paints

Crayons

Paper

Printmaking

Sketchbooks and Journals

I read the part about berry ink this morning and it answered my questions on why my own experiments didn’t work out as intented. The book would have spared me some anger and frustrations…

I already got some new ideas on what to do next 🙂

beautifully illustrated tutorial on how to produce acorn ink

The book is for adults, but I think it’s really easy to adapt some of the ideas for children. I’m sure I’ll try a lot and I’ll let you know what happened!

One sad thing is, that I don’t have a bigger garden or field. There are some tutorials in the book that require an outdoor firecamp e.g.

If you’re interested in this book, please use my affiliate link, this helps me keeping that blog up and running! Buy that book at amazon.com.

The author Nick Neddo is an artist who creates beautiful illustration of nature, made with nature. You can see more of him on his website: http://www.nickneddo.com. He is also an instagram. His feed is great, he shares not only his artwork, but many everyday outdoor pictures.

Time for me to think a about women in art. I bet the first woman who came to your mind was Frida Kahlo. Am I right?

Kahlo is amazing, one just cannot elude from her pictures and the stunning photographs her father (or others) took of her. One cannot help but admire her for the way she stood up after her tragic accident.

When I thought about wether I should take her as my personal hero post today, I started thinking about the situation for female artists today. Sad enough, I came to the conclusion that there is still a lot to do. The awareness for female artists is weak.

You don’t believe me? Then name 5 male artists who had their pictures sold for more than 1m$ during the past ten years. Pretty easy even for persons who don’t spend their everyday live in the artworld. Well, now name 5 female artists whose artwork reached the same prices. No? I didn’t manage this without cheating, either.

Let me present the 5 best-selling female artists to you:

1.) Georgia O’Keeffe

Her picture ‘Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 (1932)’ sold for 44 million $ last year.

I have to do some homework here, I never heard of her before. Hmh, russia is some blank space in my art worldmap, I don’t know anything about russian artists! Her piece ‘Les fleurs (1912)’ sold for 10.8 million in 2008.

And what about contemporary artists like Yayoi Kusama? Vanessa Beecroft? Yoko Ono? Marina Abramović? Barbara Kruger? Elizabeth Peyton? I’m just naming some of the best-known female artists but I assume that for most readers those names are familiar but wouldn’t have come to mind by themselves. I’ll have to ask my husband. He doesn’t work in the art branch, but he is very interested in art. I don’t hink he could name any of these. Maybe Abramović, as we saw a self-portrait of her in an exhibition last fall.

So, there is one book I want to recommend to you, in case you’re interested in woman as artists: ‘Danger! Woman Artists at Work’ by Debra N. Mancoff. You can buy it at amazon.com:

This book is great, by the way! It’s german, but if you want to buy it, you can do so at Amazon Germany. It shows a big range of methods for printmaking, each with an overview of tools you need, how to use the tools and some cool expert tips. There are many examples and the really really cool thing is, that Sonja Kägi doesn’t have a focus on either kids or adults. Instead, she tries to give examples for both, so that you can use this book for your own artwork as well as for a rainy afternoon with the kids…

Don’t worry if you’re in need for an English source of wisdom: it’s this one: ‘The printmaking bible: The Complete Guide to Materials and Techniques’ by Ann d’Arcy Hughes and Hebe Vernon-Morris. It’s more or the less the same as my german book. It shows so many different methods to try and does not finish at showing how to make a print with this method. You’ll also learn a lot about history of printmaking, current artist, … So if you think printmaking is something you should give a try, grab this book!

Edit: I need to figure out how to format these amazon link, as I think I’ll post book reviews every now and then.